Brighter
by The Lovely Cynic
Summary: ."He fell. He always fell...." Nightmares often plague Fai's nights.


**Brighter**

Pain, desperation and death.

Those three things were what Yuui associated with his life up until that point. The corpses of Valeria's sinners surrounded him, filling the air with the putrid odour of rotting flesh. In the time the young boy had been down in the canyon, the sickly sweet smell was something he had grown accustomed to. He couldn't help but thing how utterly _wrong _that was; for a young boy to be familiarized with the smell of death.

He dragged the bodies into a slowly growing pile. Maybe if it got tall enough, he could find the strength to climb to that window in the tower. He could escape the canyon. He could rescue _Fai_.

Fai. His twin. His other half. Fai, Fai, _Fai_.

"Fai!" he screamed, hoping his voice would carry to the window. "Please! Don't give up, I'll...." What exactly would he do? The likelihood of him actually managing to make it to the barred window was slim to none and even if he did....

What could he do? Everyone in Valeria was dead. The only ones left alive were the Twins of Misfortune. And even if they both somehow managed to escape, none of the neighbouring countries would take them in. Twins... an omen of bad luck.

"I'll be there soon," he shouted upwards, voice losing some of its resolve. The hopelessness of their situation gripped hold of his heart and squeezed it. Tears—long forgotten somewhere along the line—pricked at the backs of his eyelids. No... he couldn't think like that. He had to keep a semblance of hope smouldering alive in his chest or they would die like they were: separated. One half of a whole.

He grit his teeth and tried to disregard the bodily pain that wracked his every appendage. Determination burned in his mind as he dug his fingers into brick wall before him. He pulled himself with shaky arms, pushing with fatigued legs. He never made it far.

He fell. He _always fell_. He let out a pained cry as a fingernail was ripped from its bed. He fell on the cushion of dead bodies, sickening cracks and crunches coming as dead bones broke.

"Yuui."

Yuui looked up. Fai's voice was barely audible, but it was _there _and the sound of it made his heart soar in elation. Fai was alive. Fai was alive....

"Please... you don't have to climb anymore."

What?

Yuui's eyes widened, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. He opened his mouth to say something, protest. Of course he still needed to climb. If he didn't, they would never be together again; they would never escape the canyon....

"I'm coming down."

He fell like a ragdoll, long, golden hair trailing behind him like broken wings crumpling beneath a fallen angel.

---

"Fai!" Yuui woke with a start. A fine sheen of sweat covered his entire body even in the cool spring night. He shivered and trembled, whimpers escaping his contracting throat. He rolled onto his side, hugging his knees to his chest and trying to forget the warped memory, distorted by time, guilt and his dreams.

His fault. It was his fault Fai was dead. "Fai... Fai... I'm so sorry," he breathed, nails digging into his palms. Tears started to well in his eyes, streaming in hot, crystalline rivers down his pale cheeks. They burned his too-cold skin as he mumbled apology after apology to his _dead _twin. The real Fai. Yuui cast his name aside the day Ashura came and plucked him away from Valeria. He became Fai that day; to live out his life. The life that should have continued instead of been extinguished.

"Fai," a voice hissed in the dark. Yuui—no, no, _no_, it was _Fai_—looked up, gold eye wide and scared and filled with so many emotions that rarely surfaced at all. "Try to be quiet. You'll wake the entire palace," Kurogane whispered, standing up and kneeling beside the blond's bed. He brushed his fingers across _Fai's _cheek, thumbing away some of the wetness that accumulated on his skin.

"I'm sorry," Fai—yes, yes, he was _Fai_—breathed out, voice shaky and uneven. The tears had ceased. He had shed far too many these past few weeks and intended to stop. Reliving his past was painful, yes, but crying wasn't going to help. He didn't want to be pitied by his companions because of his current weakness, either....

"Don't be," Kurogane grunted, carefully grabbing Fai's hand and laced their fingers together. The crimson-eyed ninja's large, tanned hand engulfed the mage's trembling, bony and pale one easily. It was almost _comforting _how large and stable Kurogane was.

The black-haired man never offered sympathy to Fai, only reassurance and an attempt to understand, though he knew he never could. They stared at each other for the briefest of moments; a fleeting, longing gaze. Kurogane's dark red eyes blazed hungrily beneath the surface as he looked into Fai's singular one. The blond felt a familiar comfort wash over him under that gaze. It lapped at his wildly beating, frightened heart like a soothing tide gently coming ashore.

"Please try to get some sleep," Kurogane murmured, starting to turn away and stand up.

"Wait." Fai gripped the ninja's hand a little tighter. He tugged him a little closer and tilted his head up so their mouths were centimetres apart. Their noses bumped against each other, breath mingling together before their lips sealed together in an almost chaste, ephemeral kiss.

They parted slowly, reluctantly. "Get some sleep," Kurogane muttered, releasing Fai's hand and walking back to his own bed.

"You, too." Fai uncurled his body underneath the blankets and stared into the darkness. Things may not be better... the real Fai may not be alive and Yuui—that scared, lonely, self-loathed little boy—may still be lingering underneath the surface of his own maturity, but... if only for a moment, he could pretend. He could breathe a sigh of relief, relax his body and take some of the blame off of his shoulders.

If only for a moment, things could seem a little brighter.

**---**

**Author's Notes: **Two things in one night?! Holy cow, I'm on a roll. Well... um, I wrote this because I'm currently re-reading Tsubasa and just got to the part in Celes where they reveal Fai's past. I cried the first time and dammit, I think I may have cried even _harder _this time. Curse you, CLAMP! Anyways. Yes. I hope you enjoyed this little drabble-ish thing.


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